"What?" Avery said huskily.
"I say there was no doubt Latron was dead?"
"None."
"That was the time you came into my employ, Avery, recommended to me by one of the men who had been closest to Latron. I was not connected with the Latron properties except as an adviser; but many papers relating to them must go inevitably through my hands. I was rather on the inside in all that concerned those properties. But I could not myself see the papers; I was blind; therefore, I had to have others serve as eyes for me. And from the first, Avery, you served as my eyes in connection with all papers relating to the Latron properties. If anything ever appeared in those papers which might have led me to suspect that any injustice had been done in the punishment of Latron"s murderer, it could reach me only through you. Nothing of that sort ever did reach me, Avery. You must have made quite a good thing out of it."
"What?"
"I say, your position here must have been rather profitable to you, Avery; I have not treated you badly myself, recognizing that you must often be tempted by gaining information here from which you might make money; and your other employers must have overbid me."
"I don"t understand; I beg your pardon, Mr. Santoine, but I do not follow what you are talking about."
"No? Then we must go a little further. This last year a minor reorganization became necessary in some of the Latron properties. My friend, Gabriel Warden--who was an honest man, Avery--had recently greatly increased his interest in those properties; it was inevitable the reorganization should be largely in his hands. I remember now there was opposition to his share in it; the fact made no impression on me at the time; opposition is common in all things. During his work with the Latron properties, Warden--the honest man, Avery--discovered the terrible injustice of which I speak.
"I suspect there were discrepancies in the lists of stockholders, showing a concealed ownership of considerable blocks of stock, which first excited his suspicions. Whatever it may have been Warden certainly investigated further; his investigation revealed to him the full particulars of the injustice done to the nameless fugitive who had been convicted as the murderer of Matthew Latron. Evidently this helpless, hopeless man had been thought worth watching by some one, for Warden"s discoveries gave him also Overton"s address. Warden risked and lost his life trying to help Overton.
"I do not need to draw your attention, Avery, to the very peculiar condition which followed Warden"s death. Warden had certainly had communication with Overton of some sort; Overton"s enemies, therefore, were unable to rid themselves of him by delivering him up to the police because they did not know how much Overton knew. When I found that Warden had made me his executor and I went west and took charge of his affairs, their difficulties were intensified, for they did not dare to let suspicion of what had been done reach me. There was no course open to them, therefore, but to remove Overton before my suspicions were aroused, even if it could be done only at desperate risk to themselves.
"What I am leading up to, Avery, is your own connection with these events. You looked after your own interests rather carefully, I think, up to a certain point. When--knowing who Eaton was--you got him into a polo game, it was so that, if your interests were best served by exposing him, you could do so without revealing the real source of your knowledge of him. But an unforeseen event arose. The drafts and lists relating to the reorganization of the Latron properties--containing the very facts, no doubt, which first had aroused Warden"s suspicions--were sent me through Warden"s office. At first there was nothing threatening to you in this, because their contents could reach me only through you. But in the uncertainty I felt, I had my daughter take these matters out of your hands; you did not dare then even to ask me to give them back, for fear that would draw my attention to them and to you.
"That night, Avery, you sent an unsigned telegram from the office in the village; almost within twenty-four hours my study was entered, the safe inaccessible to you was broken open, the contents were carried away. The study window had not been forced; it had been left open from within. Do you suppose I do not know that one of the two men in the study last night was the princ.i.p.al whose agents had failed in two attempts to get rid of Overton for him, whose other agent--yourself, Avery--had failed to intercept the evidence which would have revealed the truth to me, so that, no longer trusting to agents, he himself had come in desperation to prevent my learning the facts? I realize fully, Avery, that by means of you my blindness and my reputation have been used for five years to conceal from the public the fact that Matthew Latron had not been murdered, but was still alive!"
The blind man halted; he had not gone through this long conversation, with all the strain that it entailed upon himself, without a definite object; and now, as he listened to Avery"s quick breathing and the nervous tapping of his fingers against the arm of his chair, he realized that this object was accomplished. Avery not only realized that the end of deception and concealment had come; he recognized thoroughly that Santoine would not have spoken until he had certain proof to back his words. Avery might believe that, as yet, the blind man had not all the proof in his possession; but Avery knew--as he was aware that Santoine also knew--that exposure threatened so many men that some one of them now was certain to come forward to save himself at the expense of the others. And Avery knew that only one--and the first one so to come forward--could be saved.
So Santoine heard Avery now get up; he stood an instant and tried to speak, but his breath caught nervously; he made another effort.
"I don"t think you have much against me, Mr. Santoine," he managed; it was--as the blind man had expected--only of himself that Avery was thinking.
"No?" Santoine asked quietly.
"I didn"t have anything to do with convicting Overton, or know anything about it until that part was all over; I never saw him till I saw him on the train. I didn"t know Warden was going to be killed."
"But you were accessory to the robbery of my house last night and, therefore, accessory to the murder of Wallace Blatchford. Last night, too, knowing Overton was innocent of everything charged against him, you gave orders to fire upon him at sight and he was fired upon. And what were you telling Harriet when I came in? You have told the police that Overton is the murderer of Latron. Isn"t that so the police will refuse to believe anything he may say and return him to the death cell for the sentence to be executed upon him? The law will call these things attempted murder, Avery."
The blind man heard Avery pacing the floor, and then heard him stop in front of him.
"What is it you want of me, Mr. Santoine?"
"The little information I still require."
"You mean you want me to sell the crowd out?"
"Not that; because I offer you nothing. A number of men are going to the gallows or the penitentiary for this, Avery, and you--I suspect--among them; though I also suspect--from what I have learned about your character in the last few days--that you"ll take any means open to you to avoid sharing their fate."
"I suppose you mean by that that I"ll turn State"s evidence if I get a chance, and that I might as well begin now."
"That, I should say, is entirely up to you. The charge of what I know--with the simultaneous arrest of a certain number of men in different places whom I know must be implicated--will be made to-morrow. You, perhaps, are a better judge than I of the cohesion of your group in the contingencies which it will face to-morrow morning.
I offer you nothing now, Avery--no recommendation of clemency--nothing.
If you prefer to have me learn the full facts from the first of another who breaks, very well."
Santoine waited. He heard Avery take a few more steps up and down; then he halted; now he walked again; they were uneven steps as Santoine heard them; then Avery stopped once more.
"What is it you want to know, sir?"
"Who killed Warden?"
"John Yarrow is his name; he was a sort of hanger-on of Latron"s. I don"t know where Latron picked him up."
"Was it he who also made the attack on the train?"
"Yes."
"Who was the other man on the train--the one that claimed the telegram addressed to Lawrence Hillward?"
"His name"s Hollock. He"s the t.i.tular owner of the place on the Michigan sh.o.r.e where Latron has been living. The telegram I sent night before last was addressed to his place, you know. He"s been a sort of go-between for Latron and the men--those who knew--who were managing the properties. I"d never met him, though, Mr. Santoine, and I didn"t know either him or Hollock on the train. As I said, I wasn"t in the know about killing Warden."
"When did you learn who Eaton was, Avery?"
"The day after we got back here from the West I got word from Latron; they didn"t tell me till they needed to use me." Avery hesitated; then he went on--he was eager now to tell all he knew in his belief that by doing so he was helping his own case. "You understand, sir, about Latron"s pretended death--a guide at the shooting lodge had been killed by a chance shot in the woods; purely accidental; some one of the party had fired at a deer, missed, and never knew he"d killed a man with the waste shot. When the guide didn"t come back to camp, they looked for him and found his body. He was a man who never would be missed or inquired for and was very nearly Latron"s size; and that gave Latron the idea.
"At first there was no idea of pretending he had been murdered; it was the coroner who first suggested that. Things looked ugly for a while, under the circ.u.mstances, as they were made public. Either the scheme might come out or some one else be charged as the murderer. That put it up to Overton. He"d actually been up there to see Latron and had had a scene with him which had been witnessed. That part--all but the evidence which showed that he shot Latron afterwards--was perfectly true. He thought that Latron, as he was about to go to trial, might be willing to give him information which would let him save something from the fortune he"d lost through Latron"s manipulations. The circ.u.mstances, motive, everything was ready to convict Overton; it needed very little more to complete the case against him."
"So it was completed."
"But after Overton was convicted, he was not allowed to be punished, sir."
Santoine"s lips straightened in contempt. "He was not allowed to be punished?"
"Overton didn"t actually escape, you know, Mr. Santoine--that is, he couldn"t have escaped without help; Latron was thoroughly frightened and he wanted it carried through and Overton executed; but some of the others rebelled against this and saw that Overton got away; but he never knew he"d been helped. I understand it was evidence of Latron"s insistence on the sentence being carried out that Warden found, after his first suspicions had been aroused, and that put Warden in a position to have Latron tried for his life, and made it necessary to kill Warden."
"Latron is dead, of course, Avery, or fatally wounded?"
"He"s dead. Over--Eaton, that is, sir--hit him last night with three shots."
"As a housebreaker engaged in rifling my safe, Avery."
"Yes, sir. Latron was dying when they took him out of the car last night. They got him away, though; put him on the boat he"d come on. I saw them in the woods last night. They"ll not destroy the body or make away with it, sir, at present."
"In other words, you instructed them not to do so until you had found out whether Overton could be handed over for execution and the facts regarding Latron kept secret, or whether some other course was necessary."
The blind man did not wait for any answer to this; he straightened suddenly, gripping the arms of his chair, and got up. There was more he wished to ask; in the bitterness he felt at his blindness having been used to make him an unconscious agent in these things of which Avery spoke so calmly, he was resolved that no one who had shared knowingly in them should go unpunished. But now he heard the noise made by approach of Eaton"s captors. He had noted it a minute or more earlier; he was sure now that it was definitely nearing the house. He crossed to the window, opened it and stood there listening; the people outside were coming up the driveway. Santoine went into the hall.
"Where is Miss Santoine?" he inquired.
The servant who waited in the hall told him she had gone out. As Santoine stood listening, the sounds without became coherent to him.
"They have taken Overton, Avery," he commented. "Of course they have taken no one else. I shall tell those in charge of him that he is not the one they are to hold prisoner but that I have another for them here."